


Sinking Deep

by Inquisitor_Vakarian



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:47:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inquisitor_Vakarian/pseuds/Inquisitor_Vakarian
Summary: An idea. Dorian and the Inquisitor. I'm not quite sure where it's going yet.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 5





	Sinking Deep

For as long as Dorain Pavus had known the Inquisitor, he had been terrified of water. Not just the usual air of caution, which was all too common in a nation with waters so cold nobody learnt how to swim, no, this kind of fear was different. His dislike of all things aquatic stemmed from a much darker place than ignorance - experience. Dorian had never pried and thought perhaps it was just a strange quirk of the Dalish man, nothing more. How naive he had been.

“Your clan thought the coast would be peaceful. There was no way they could have-”

“No.” The Inquisitor's response was chillingly brief and dangerously stern. “Don’t go there.” 

Dorian locked eyes with Cassandra. They both knew what was coming. They had both been prodded by Cole’s ‘compassionate’ words in the past but something about this was different. The way the Inquisitor kept his eyes locked on the path ahead was unnerving. He was never one to not face anything, conflict or conversation, head on.

_“Thieving knife-eared kids!” His voice was loud. Angry. So angry. A knife, no, a sword, so large it was as tall as them. It cut through her like soft cloth. No warning. Only screaming. And blood. Oh so much blood. You begged them to stop but they kept coming, cutting, “What are you doing?” Falling backwards, pebbles cold and wet, digging into my hands, kicking forwards to get away. He’s so angry. What did we do wrong? Creators guide me, ma ghilana mir din’an._ _I can’t escape. He charges, braces to swing. Eyes clamped shut, forgive me, I am ready to die._

“But you didn’t die!” Cole said. “You fought, you lived, you -”

_ Loud. Roaring, racing, ears hurting, palms burning, a rushing urging release, but it hurt so much. Water, swirling, growing, glowing, reaching and wrapping. They were gone. It killed them. You were safe. You saved them. All that were left. It was over, but it won’t stop. It won't stop, why won’t it stop? I can't stop, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! Please somebody help me I can’t breathe!  _

Dorian could see, despite his distance that these memories pained him. He held back tears.

“But then the keeper came and you were okay. You are okay, you survived. You’re stronger now. You won’t let it happen again.”

The inquisitor said nothing, and that silence continued for the rest of their journey.

That was why the Inquisitor hated water. The fear itself had become apparent to Dorian upon their first meeting, when the Herald had avoided so much as looking to the lake at Redcliffe. He struggled and felt sick everytime the party ventured to the storm coast, venturing out only because he knew he had a responsibility to go there. It was instinct, a primal fear that nothing, no counsel or comfort could ever break. When he and Dorian were transported to the future redcliffe and landed in the flooded cellar, it took everything for the elf to remain composed, but Cole was right about one thing: he was okay; Dorian was there to protect him.

Later that night, the Inquisitor had told Dorian he thought he was going to die that day. First at the hand of the enraged human, and then because his magic, dormant until then, had manifested so urgently and violently, it had torn the sea from behind him into some kind of swirling vortex to drown away his foes. He was only a child. He didn’t know what he was doing or how to stop, and he was drowning in a prison of his own creation.

Dorian asked him what the sudden emergence of power, his power, had it felt like.

“Not everything feels like something else.” The inquisitor had replied.

It had been well over a year since that conversation and Dorian was at camp, curled up in the cold in a tent as the Inquisitor, his amatus, slept peacefully at his side. He couldn’t sleep, like most nights in the frigid weather, so instead he just rested, watching the steady rise and fall of his lover's chest in the little moonlight that made it inside.

The Inquisitor awoke. He shot upright. The movement surprised Dorian, who tilted his head to the side. 

“Are you alright Inquisitor?”

“I am fine, Dorian”

His answer was unconvincing. He didn't look at Dorian as he spoke. He moved to leave the tent.

“What are you doing?”

And then came the reply. The reply which made Dorian remember that conversation from so many months ago:

“I’m just going for a swim.”


End file.
